Altoona native returns to trick ride in circus
Altoona native Ashley Pletcher, 26, grew up attending the Jaffa Shrine Circus each year and starting today, she'll be a star performer as a trick rider for The Alanian Riders when the show "Billy Martin Presents" comes to Altoona.
"It's my first time doing a circus in my hometown," she said. "I've never performed within the city limits of Altoona. My phone has been blowing up as people recognize me in the poster outside the Jaffa and from the TV commercials. I'm very excited to see my family and friends. It doesn't happen often. Very few people in the circus get to perform in their hometown."
Attending the circus as a child was a much-anticipated event, she said, as grandfather Jerry Helsel, her father, Rob Pletcher, and an uncle are Masons and involved in the Shrine. Since joining The Alanian Riders, she has performed in hundreds of circuses around the country.
Her show with The Alanian Riders lasts 5 to 7 minutes.
She's been performing with them for four years and is a co-owner.
Her riding stunts prompt the audience to "ooh" and "aah" -- especially when Pletcher goes upside down, under the horse's belly and up the other side of the thoroughbred as he gallops at full speed on the rubber, circular track at 25 mph.
Pletcher is 5 foot 5 inches and 130-pounds, so her horses dwarf her as they range in height from 56.8 to 64.4 inches tall and between 900 to 1,200 pounds but fear isn't in her vocabulary.
"She was the most talented kid I ever met," said Christi Barley, owner of Trail Ridge in Tyrone, who taught Pletcher how to ride and train horses.
"She had a lot of ability at a young age to control the horse she was riding," Barley said. "She was a quick thinker with quick responses and very, very patient. I immediately knew that no matter what I asked her to do, that she could do it."
Pletcher's family turned to Barley for help when the then 8-year-old Pletcher rode her pony Sugar around the family's Sinking Valley property and tried to teach it tricks. A 2006 weeklong vacation to a horse ranch in Cook Forest, Clarion County, transformed her life. There, 12-year-old Pletcher met Tommie Turvey of Equine Extremist. Turvey introduced her to trick riding, and Barley encouraged her dream.
"When she came back, she said she wanted to be a trick rider like Tommie, and I told her, 'It's not out of the realm of possibility,' Barley said. "I started teaching her."
Barley had an extensive background in rodeo performing and annually put on a rodeo in nearby Warriors Mark. As Pletcher's interest and experience grew and her traveling to events increased, she left the Altoona Area School District and became an online student.
Pletcher graduated from Pennsylvania Cyber Charter School in 2011, learned how to shoe horses then joined Turvey's Equine Extremist in Sterling, Ill., first as an intern and then a full-time employee. "Tommie took me in and taught me how to train horses in doing tricks and running a business," Pletcher said. She hit the national circuit performing in rodeos, fairs, horse expositions and offering training clinics where she taught others through her business, Keystone Equine Entertainment LLC.
Public doesn't see hours of training
"The glamour side is really a very small percentage of it," she said of a trick riding career. "People see you in the spotlight in a fancy costume with your hair and makeup all done, but that's the smallest part. People don't see you filthy and sweating after you've been outside training for hours in the heat."
Last summer during the "Horses Got Talent" competition in Lumberton, N.C., Pletcher won the title of Miss Rodeo North Carolina 2019 and will compete in Miss Rodeo America 2020 in Las Vegas in December.
"It was a last-minute decision to enter," she said sitting at Barley's kitchen table as the scent of homemade vegetable stew permeated the air. "I'd performed (as an entertainer) at 'Horses Got Talent' for several years before, so I decided to try it."
As Miss Rodeo North Carolina, she does radio, TV and newspaper interviews to promote and explain what rodeo is about: bull riding, saddle bronc riding, team roping, barrel racing and entertainment. A typical rodeo features a rodeo clown and Pletcher as the "dress act," either performing tricks on and with one of her six horses or performing Roma riding. In Roma riding, she stands spread-eagled, one foot placed on each of two horses while they gallop.
The rodeo industry led her to her fiance, Brandon Presnell, who was a professional bull rider and mixed martial artist. Now, Presnell works as a welder for a fencing company. The two met at a rodeo event two years ago. They plan to wed in Thomasville, S.C., June 19, 2020.
"I've never been afraid and now that I am teaching, I see it's a mental thing. The speed is what freaks people out," she said.
First lesson is learning to fall
New tricks are learned step-by-step: first at a standstill, then at a walk, trot, and, finally, a gallop. Originally, Russian warriors used the on-horseback maneuvers during combat when war battles were waged on horseback. Before Pletcher could learn any tricks, she had to learn to fall.
"You learn to fall off different ways and learn what to do if a trick goes wrong," she said. "By falling off different ways, your reaction time and muscle memory improves. Mainly, you learn to tuck and roll. And get back on and finish the act, but that rarely happens."
Barley boasts that Pletcher is one of a very few female trick riders on the East Coast so Pletcher has an impressive, national reputation that finds her performing across the country in addition to her circus and rodeo work and teaching.
Often, when a group requests her to perform "in the spotlight" for rodeos, she flies across the country and meets an unfamiliar horse. In one day, she and the horse rehearse and learn to work together.
"Those are the most difficult (performances) because every horse moves differently and is shaped differently. Plus, the horse has to learn how to be with me and shift my weight," she explained.
If the horse and rider aren't in sync, mishaps may happen.
Her most serious injuries occurred when her horse, Magula, fell on top of her as she swung upside down. She received a concussion, broke her left hand and tore her right hamstring in half.
"He tried his best to save it," she said, recalling the accident that left her recuperating for three months. Additionally, she suffered two previous concussions and broke her right hand.
Despite the risks, a stunt rider typically enjoys a 20- to 30-year career. Her business partner, Lev Gigolaev, is 48 and still performs, she said.
"It's really hard on your body as you are whipped and pulled in different directions every day during practice and during the act. You get bruised and brush burned, but I don't feel it any more. Your body gets used to it."
The risks haven't dampened her enthusiasm as she plans to continue building her businesses and performing into the future.
Staff writer Patt Keith is at 949-7030.